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Friday, February 26, 2016

David Brooks, "The Governing Cancer of Our Time": Is Trump an Inoperable Tumor?

"'Everybody does it,' is an excuse expected from a mischievous child, not a presidential candidate. But that is Hillary Clinton’s latest defense for making closed-door, richly paid speeches to big banks, which many middle-class Americans still blame for their economic pain, and then refusing to release the transcripts.

. . . .

Public interest in these speeches is legitimate, and it is the public — not the candidate — who decides how much disclosure is enough. By stonewalling on these transcripts Mrs. Clinton plays into the hands of those who say she’s not trustworthy and makes her own rules. Most important, she is damaging her credibility among Democrats who are begging her to show them that she’d run an accountable and transparent White House."

Indeed, Hillary's refusal to cough up the Goldman Sachs transcripts calls into question her claims of leadership and transparency. Obviously, Hillary's staff has pored over these speeches, and there is good reason why they are not being released. But who could imagine that the Gray Lady was capable of growing the cojones to challenge Hillary on this issue?

And yesterday, Marco Rubio finally filleted Donald Trump in Houston. Could it make a difference on Super Tuesday, or are Republicans crazy enough to nominate a bully suffering from a severe narcissistic personality disorder?

Indeed, it was a night of surprises.

David Brooks, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Governing Cancer of Our Time," addresses "antipolitics people," who "suffer from a form of political narcissism, in which they don’t accept the legitimacy of other interests and opinions." Brooks goes on to say of Donald Trump:

"People say that Trump is an unconventional candidate and that he represents a break from politics as usual. That’s not true. Trump is the culmination of the trends we have been seeing for the last 30 years: the desire for outsiders; the bashing style of rhetoric that makes conversation impossible; the decline of coherent political parties; the declining importance of policy; the tendency to fight cultural battles and identity wars through political means.

Trump represents the path the founders rejected. There is a hint of violence undergirding his campaign. There is always a whiff, and sometimes more than a whiff, of 'I’d like to punch him in the face.'"